by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. There’s a whole lot of lamenting going on in Washington, D.C. It goes like this: once upon a time the Congress of the Great Republic was a genteel place where ladies and gentlemen put on their white gloves and best manners, taking tea while cozily arranging America’s affairs… thence home to a Dickens novel and well-earned slumber. The problem is that such a time never existed in the Congress of these factious United States. It’s the merest myth… for all that the poor lads and lassies who represent us yearn for such a place, such a time, and such amiable, thoughtful, sympathetic colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
And so, these folks give way to frequent tears and even more frequent sighs and vapors… with lamentations loud, frequent, poignant, heart-rending — and silly.
The most recent to give way to this “feel sorry for me” rubbish is the lady from Maine, senior Republican Senator Olympia Snowe. On February 28, 2012 the Honorable Olympia announced her inability to stomach the poisonous, internecine, downright nasty senatorial environment for another term. And so, lamenting, petulant, self-pitying, she said “basta!”… and started packing her valises with the accumulated treasures and heirlooms — not to mention the pensions and emoluments — of over 33 years in Congress. These will be substantial indeed.
As for me, I cannot find a single tear for the lady, rather the reverse. She says she was armed for another campaign, had money aplenty to fight the good fight… but she clearly lacked the stomach for so much closeness to her feisty and outspoken Mainers. Senators are revered, coddled, kowtowed to in Washington, D.C. Back home amidst the problems and bleakness of Portland, they are asked, insistently too, just what have you done for us lately, Missie… and you’d better have a detailed answer at the ready. Demigods like Senator Olympia find such directness rude, and long for fragrant camomile in a fragile cup of Old Worcester while aides fan her with cooling air…. unlimited incense… and deference to every word and wish.
Ms. Olympia says she’s a Greek from Spartan stock… and while that might have been true 30 years ago in her elected salad days, it is most assuredly true no longer. She’s gone Athenian, and now demands reverence, not the stark choice of returning with her shield — or on it. And so she must retire… because she is no longer able to fight the good fight for Maine, for Mainers, and for the Great Republic which needs visionaries, fighters, not aging voluptuaries who crave comfort, not confrontation.
Enter Congressman John Sullivan (R-Oklahoma).
February 22, 2012 Representative Sullivan made a few red-blooded observations during one of his regular “town hall” meetings with constituents. The subject was how to get the Senate of the Great Republic to get serious, I mean really serious, about balancing the out-of-control federal budget.
“I’d love to get them /the senators/ to vote for it. Boy, I’d love that, you know. But other than me going over there with a gun and pointing it to their head and maybe killing a couple of them, I don’t feel they’re going to listen unless they get beat.”
Cornered by the ever present Thought Police, Representative Sullivan, that able and forthright member for Tulsa, backed down. He didn’t mean it….shouldn’t have said it… certainly didn’t imagine… and would never, ever do… You get the picture. The Honorable John was tripping over himself, back pedaling to beat the band. But why?
After all, he is far more what we actually want in our elected representatives, even while we say we prefer the Olympia model. No, we want our reps to represent us robustly, directly, rudely, shrewdly, without limits … because unless they do that our share of the pie — and the extra bucks we covet — will go to others more able to bring home the bacon than our shrinking violets… and that will never do.
The great example of Representative Preston Brooks.
In 1856, the great issue of the day was slavery. It was a question which overshadowed all others. It was intractable, divisive, perhaps insoluble… certainly unavoidable. And because moderates could not prevail in resolving the matter, it was left to the zealots on both sides to see what they could do, using whatever means they chose to use.
And so on May 18, 1856 the Honorable Charles Sumner, the Senator from Massachusetts, arose to see what he could do to resolve the irresolvable… his vehicle being his great speech “The Crime Against Kansas” given to ensure that slavery did not encroach into the Kansas Territory and so augment the South and the slave owners he despised.
It was a great speech in every way — 50 single-spaced pages in length, a detailed analysis of the problem, the most brilliant, vituperative language; language meant to insult, to scald, to enrage, with a position that absolutely no one could misunderstand, whatever side they supported.
Picture the scene. Not a cup of camomile to be seen.
Great Sumner rises sustained by sanctimony, rectitude and rage; each word is sonorous, delivered with venom, designed to sting, outrage, rebuke, condemn, no quarter asked, none given.
And so this man of Harvard, of Boston, of Massachusetts, this man of certainty, no doubt or hesitation rose to challenge the nation and to reshape the Great Republic.
Every eye was on the man, a mere man no longer, but the agent of a stern, implacable God, God the Avenger, majestic, awe-inspiring, I Am that I Am.
“Mr. President,” he began, “You are now called to redress a great transgression.”
And every word that followed in that vast torrent of words beat home this point.
There was no note of accommodation, no politics as usual, nothing less than total victory would do.
In the course of this great philippic, which ultimately saw one million copies distributed, Senator Sumner attacked Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, not just the man or his ideas but his stroke-impaired physique. It was brutal, it was hurtful; it was insulting… and a few days later inspired the Senator’s outraged nephew, South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks to enter the Senate Chamber and, with his gutta-percha cane with solid gold knob, beat Sumner insensate, even when Sumner was comatose, lying in his puddling blood.
So did immoderate Sumner make his case…so did immoderate Brooks retaliate.
And so was the Congress of the Great Republic shortly peopled by representatives carrying devices of every kind, guns, knives, and of course the gutta-percha sticks with gold knobs made fashionable — or abhorrent — by this incident which moved the Civil War appreciably closer.
That is why, Senator Snowe, your decision to leave is a bad decision. The people of Maine need you.. the Congress needs you… the Great Republic still has great need of your services. No, it is not convenient for you; not least because you must present yourself again to your constituents, and, being Mainers, they will question you closely, for they are no respecters of persons and so may affront you. What of it? You have the Great Republic’s work to do. And that is far more important and pressing than your own personal feelings or comfort. They count for nothing against what you can do, must do and cannot abandon now.
Thus I give you this song, “John Brown’s Body”, a rousing tune which arose from the American camp meeting tradition in the early 19th century and, after many changes of words, became the marching tune for people who understood the implementation of Truth was a long, difficult, often dangerous process. Go now to any search engine and find the rendition you like… and bookmark it, for you will have need of it in the work ahead:
“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave His soul’s marching on.”
And so must you, too, Senator Olympia Snowe, for your work for the people is most assuredly not finished yet.
Dedication: The author is pleased to dedicate this work to Joshua Aaron Sumner and Roshelle Elena Sumner, descendants of the magnificent Yankee who alerted the world to “The Crime Against Kansas,” children of dear friend, Lance Sumner, fellow Internet argonaut.
